Sit down and pay attention. It's time to learn!

$12,960,000

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) have had mixed success in Delaware. However, from my District’s perspective and the members my Association has surveyed, I’d say results have been downright negative. While many have felt they’ve been effective, many more have found them to be a burdensome waste of time that has continued to fill up teachers’ already full plates. Teachers throughout the state have lost valuable planning, personal, and instructional time to complete these required meetings.

And they’re set to go away this year.

Rumor has it the state is trying to force into Department of Education regulation the continuation of PLCs, which have been a requirement under the expiring Race to the Top grant. I’m not generally one to report on “rumor,” but I’ve heard this one from multiple reliable sources.

Let me put it like this, Department of Education: Teachers are bogged down with the seemingly endless requirements you place on us in the name of data! data! data! and bureaucratic largesse.

You want to continue with PLCs? Time to pay up.

About 8,000 teachers in Delaware.
90 minutes of PLC per week.
$27 per hour of Extra Pay for Extra Responsibility outside the school day.
40 weeks per school year.
My extremely rough estimate is $12,960,000.

Our time is valuable, too. We’ve lost our contractually obligated planning time. We’ve lost our personal time outside of the school day. Our students, at times, have lost valuable time with us so that we could attend these meetings during the school day.

Any changes in state code or regulation that seek to codify PLCs had better have a fiscal note attached. Anything less is an insult to the thousands of teachers who’ve had to work through this ineffectual edreform micromanagement known as PLCs.